After more than a decade of testing and four full seasons of commercial sales, Intellicoat Early Plant hybrids show increasing acceptance among no-tillers coping with cold, wet spring soils, reports Landec Ag, developer of the polymer seed-coating product.

Tim Manchester was nonchalantly looking over yield maps when the clusters of dots representing yields glowed as brightly as a K-Mart blue light special.

When people ask me for a quick answer to justify shifting to no-tillage, the best one I can come up with is this: Yield is not measured in bushels or tons per acre. Yield is measured in net dollars per acre. No-tilling equals more dollars in the bank.

Does precision farming, with page after page of information generated by automated devices, really make your no-till fields more productive? Or are you about ready to unplug it all in frustration?

The current standard for determining nitrogen application rates is way off course, according to Richard Mulvaney, a soil scientist at the University of Illinois.

The biggest crowd in years, more than 700 people, attended the 14th annual National No-Tillage Conference in St. Louis and went home with plenty to think about and put to use on their farms.